Lakoff writes: "Michigan has just passed a corporate servitude law. It is designed to take away many of the worker rights that unions have conferred throughout their history: the right to a living wage. The right to equal pay for women. The right to deferred payments in the form of pensions. The right to negotiate workplace standards and working conditions. The right to overtime pay."

George Lakoff. (photo: UC Berkeley)

Michigan's New Corporate Servitude Law

By George Lakoff, Reader Supported News

13 December 12

ichigan has just passed a corporate servitude law. It is designed to take away many of the worker rights that unions have conferred throughout their history: the right to a living wage. The right to equal pay for women. The right to deferred payments in the form of pensions. The right to negotiate workplace standards and working conditions. The right to overtime pay.

The law is intended to destroy unions, or at least make then ineffective. It says simply that workers do not have to pay union dues to take a job -- even if they get benefits previously negotiated by a union. Most workers who don't have to pay dues won't pay, and that will defund the unions, killing them and taking away rights unions have fought hard for over generations. Without workers negotiating as a unified group, corporations will not have to grant those union-created rights. Corporations will have take-it-or-leave-it power over individual workers. In short, this is corporate servitude: You do what you are told and take what you are offered.

The deeper truth about unions is that they don't just create and maintain rights for workers; they work for and create crucial rights in society as a whole. Unions created weekends, the eight-hour workday and health benefits. And through their politics, they have been at the center of support for civil rights and other social justice issues. In short, unions don't just work for their members. They work for all of us. Including businesses: Workers are profit creators.

Since Democratic candidates tend to support the same progressive views, defunding unions would take away their power to campaign for Democratic candidates. The new Michigan law is thus also a partisan law supporting the Republican party.

Language matters. Republicans understand this better than Democrats. Republicans have called their corporate servitude law a "right to work" law, as if the law conferred a right instead of taking many away. The first principle of political and social communication in cases of conflict is: avoid the other side's language. The Democrats keep violating this principle, using the Republicans' name for this law. In this way they are helping Republicans, because using the Republican language activates Republican framing, not just for this law, but for conservative ideology at the deepest level.

Progressives and conservatives have opposing views of democracy. For progressives, democracy is based on citizens caring about each other and acting responsibly on that care, with both individual and social responsibility, to provide through the government protection and empowerment for all. Government thus becomes a means by which citizens pay for public provisions to benefit all: public infrastructure (roads, bridges, hospitals, public buildings), public education, public health and safety (clean air, clean water, safe food, disease protection), a patent office to protection innovations, a justice system, and networks for energy, communication, and transportation. Without all these public provisions, we are not free: Business cannot thrive (if it can operate at all) and we cannot live decent, civilized private lives. It is a deep truth about our democracy: our freedom depends on such public provisions and the private depends on the public. Unions both defend these freedoms and add to them the worker rights unions have created.

Conservatives don't accept this truth, if they perceive it at all. They tend to see democracy as providing "liberty" -- the liberty to pursue one's own interests and well-being through personal responsibility, without being responsible for the interests or well-being of others and without others being responsible for them.

From this conservative perspective, businessmen should have the liberty to run their businesses as they please to maximize their profit, and workers should rely on only their personal responsibility to get and keep a job. Unions, for conservatives, thus violate (1) the liberty of business owners to offer workers what is most profitable for the business, (2) the personal responsibility of workers, and (3) the liberty conservatives think workers should have to work without paying union dues.

From the progressive perspective, the new Michigan law is a corporate servitude law, while from the conservative perspective, the law is a "right to work" law.

Language works so that the conservative name "right to work" evokes the conservative political ideology in the brains of those who hear it without wincing. The more an idea is activated in the brain the stronger it gets. Thus, the use of the conservative name strengthens the conservative ideology in the brains of the public.

The press is not being neutral in using the Republican name for the law. Journalists too, in just using the name, are supporting both the Republican framing of the law and conservative ideology. The press is not being balanced -- which is what journalists typically claim to be. Balance would be to use both the names "corporate servitude law" and "right to work law" and to explain the differences in the progressive and conservative understanding of what the law is and does.

Of course, to do so would change a false view of language that journalists too often internalize, namely, that language is neutral. To see that it isn't, just try speaking or writing of "Michigan's corporate servitude law" and listen to conservatives scream bloody murder over a truth that does fit their view of democracy. And listen to them keep screaming because it is important to keep repeating the true name of the law if the public is to understand what the law really does.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Comments

We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.

General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.

Are the lemmings of Michigan so silly? These are your representatives! If you don't like them, you may elect others. Don't want to pay for the benefits of Union Membership? Then you won't have them! What's this I hear? You can read the writing on the wall? EXCELLENT...

Are the lemmings of Michigan so silly? These are your representatives! If you don't like them, you may elect others. Don't want to pay for the benefits of Union Membership? Then you won't have them! What's this I hear? You can read the writing on the wall? EXCELLENT...

I think that's rather harsh, brown.j. I don't live in Michigan, but my understanding is that the reps have gerrymandered so thoroughly to split up the Democratic vote that it is nearly impossible for Democrats to get elected there now. I think that unless the MI Dems organize themselves and really work at it -- unless they become major get-out-the-vote machines -- they don't stand a chance of voting out these bastards who are ruining their state. And I think the same is true of many other states, too.

Yeah Lolanne,These damn red states are very hard to deal with, here in Arizona they past a right to work a few years ago and the only jobs out there are flipping burgers....it's a sad state this country is in, but AZ is turning a very nice purple. 2014 is going to determine weather people wake-up or not.God I'm sick of these Greedy Unprogressive Pigs.

We got RTW in 86 in Idaho and we are still waiting for the good jobs. Our semi-conductor industry plateaued about 10 years ago and it doesn't employ very many people, while getting more automated all the time.

People protested in the streets.They did what they could. It's Congress Members and State governments that are in charge and pass laws (Think NAFTA,Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act,End of Welfare as we know it all passed by Clinton) a Democratic President whose party is supposed to be committed to the poor and middle class getting a fair shake. People doing their part? They certainly are with Occupy, petitions on the internet and protests. If laws favor the rich to the detriment of the rest by those who make and sign those laws what follows falls on the shoulders of the lawmakers

It was a problem of people letting their guard down during the Gubernatorial election in 2010. Many people who had worked so hard for Obama thought that he was not achieving enough to bother.They thought that elections didn't make much difference and stayed home and didn't bother voting for the Dem. candidate. We are now paying. We see that the Gubernatorial election is VERY IMPORTANT.

Too many of us Michiganders are living off of UAW won penisons. Another 20 years and most of us will be dead. What will Michigan be then? I'm afraid that we "will" be just like China and many of the less-fortunate people living like we lived back in the depression.

The Republicans couldn't have gerrymandered the districts unless they had first been elected by the voters.This law, and the others being rammed through, are, yes, a consequence of destructive conservative ideologues...who were elected.The voters are the ultimate victims, but they are far from blameless.

Republicans simply acting as corporate representatives, ie henchmen. And those in the public who are neither upper management nor GOP politicians are nothing but jealous and gullible fools that can easily be compared to "collaborators" in war time. They think that because they are not unionized, they don't benefit from them. They couldn't be more wrong. They just shot themselves in the foot big time, for their own conditions will be slowly eroding...

They already had that choice. They didn't have to pay union fees, even though they also benefited from them if they were hired. Those non-paying workers are free-loaders who don't know what is good for them. Enjoy your servitude. Regression is so unbecoming.

I'm glad they are getting out there in big numbers. They know what's at stake. Corporations call themselves people but they don't give a damn about people's welfare or the health of the economy. People fought hard to create unions and that has to happen again but now with NAFTA and The TPP coming down the line, corporations will blackmail citizens to pay less so they can enrich themselves - Corporations hate Democracy that's the name of the game here and all of our lives are at stake.All corporations want is make the race to the bottom the norm and unless people get out there like they are protesting against Walmart too there will be no change. We have to force change.

And taxpayer money goes to subsidize Walmart's low pay/no benefits policies! When Walmart tells itsworkers to get food stamps, welfare, etc. it is we the taxpayers PAYING FOR THEIR PROFITS! And their selling of mostly Chinese products means we subsidize the outsourcing of jobs as well as consumers who shop at Walmart!Double whammy!

If you have worked in a right-to-work state, like Tennessee, you know that you have no recourse. I worked in an office with a desk, computer, and phone, for a couple of years, and was still styled as "free lance"--no benefits, no paid holidays, no health insurance. I paid my whole social security tax and income tax, At least the government keeps faith with Social Security.

Has anybody been to Detroit in the last ten years. I is a mess. The big three have moved tens of thousands of jobs out of Michigan to lower wage Right-toWork states, and to foreign countries; and foreign automakers are all operating non-union plants inj this country. With those historic facts, is the Michigan R2W bill an attempt to save what few auto industry jobs that are left in Detroit, or is it a raw attempt to destroy unions.

Unions definitely improved the working lives of everyone, but we now find ourselves buying goods at Walmart, who buys EVERYTHING in lower wage countries. We have a new force driving against the American worker, and until we organize the auto plants in Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and parts plants in Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and elsewhere we will continue to lose jobs here.

Midwest Tom, you make a good point. We have eliminated duties on incoming goods to the extent that any lower wage trading area can undercut US-made goods. Other countries have been more careful in reducing duties to protect their local manufacturing - not the US, as US companies can maximize their profit by outsourcing without any penalty.

Plus they are allowed to sell everything on a ship to their off shore subsidiary and then when they sell it in the US, they have made no profit, hence no taxes...like GE. This is why the corps. want to bring offshore money in...because that is where it all is. If Obama gives them this free bee, it will be total treachery by our new president.

"but we now find ourselves buying goods at Walmart" Well, don't! I think I have been in a Wallmart once, many years ago. The experience itself should keep people from going a second time. I'll pay a little more at a locally owned store, or buy online for less.

... I'll pay a little more at a locally owned store, or buy online for less.

A free market accommodates that - the consumer has a choice, Do I want the best value for my money or do I want to pay top dollar so union guys can retire 20 years before I do... In a free country consumers deserve that choice.

Of course they have the choice to buy from owners whose net worth equals that of nearly half of U.S. households and a family worth 93 Billion who pay their workers less than a living wage.Union guys pay into a pension plan and/or Social Security same as any other worker. The price you pay for goods doesn't fund pension plans for union members.

Aw poor baby,someone is getting a better deal than you so you're jealous? [likle a 4th-grader!?) And instead of ensuring that you too (via your company e.g.,) get an equally good deal, you prefer to undermine the people who you're jealous of?

When I first moved to town I could walk to 3 moderately sized grocery stores, 1 bookstore, a Western Auto Hardware store, a Mode-o-day, A J.C. Pennys, 3 drugstores,a bookstores all gone now. These have been replaced by restaurants, wine tasting, clothing shops. I buy my books online even though Amazon is NOT the best employer according to one account and even though I shop more, especially for food at other places than Walmart all are run by Corporations and I'm sure their workers

Well, as we resemble more and more a totalitarian state where all rights flow to the money interests, remember the old Soviet Union slogan: "You pretend to pay us and we pretend to work." Also "Workers of the world unite,; you have nothing to lose but your chains!" So very awful that so many people are brought so low by so few greedy #%&*$&s! Especially after fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers fought so hard to bring decent hours, decent pay, decent living standards for so many. Wage Slavery is alive in well in 'The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave'* (*Some restrictions may apply; not valid in all states)

Yo guess you are poster child for MacD'sYou will see what Slave Labor is all aboutYou are now the same on the eyes of your State Government as sweat shop, illegal worker Go ahead pay all those taxes and make your ends meet Fools are born every minute I am pro spay and neutering for just these circumstancesBy the way no one has to pay Union Dues DUH

Our beloved St. Michael Moore, the Irish devil (takes one to know one) did a terrific job, per usual, on MSNBC last night (Thurs.), goosing Michigan folks into Wisconsin style 'fight like hell' mode.

FYI: a strong union voice for workers allows those workers to speak up and out for safety for not just themselves, but for customers and others.

The pleas for my help, which turned me into a union organizer, came shortly after a young Y employee had presented the Y head with a worker's petition which included vital kid safety concerns, and was immediately fired. Google: 914 F.2d 1442. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and, thank God, we prevailed.

Contact your senator and representative in your district.Here's a link to my petitionhttps://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/defend-postal-service-privatization/nV54rsfF,Thanks for your concern.Let me know if this works for you.

Hey There...you need to edit your posted about your petition, or repost. The petition link doesn't work, because you neglected to put a space before and after the link...your text in front of and after has become part of the link.Few will bother to analyze and correct this when they get a URL not found.

Where is our beloved Michael Moore to comment on this critical issue??? He must be as heartbroken as the rest of us!!!

Michael warned us, and he is alive and well in Michigan- the last I heard.He may have quieted down because his warnings fell on too many deaf ears, and we are now seeing the impact of our ignorance. The wealthy are winning, and it may be too late. Keep the faith though, the protesters in Lansing last weekend show that we are not all dead!

Maybe its just a matter of time before Corporate Media and the dysfunctional Two Party Fringe-O's begin seriously firing off staccato Talkingpoints discussing the possible economic value and necessity of bonded servitude, worker ankle chains and selective lifespan cutoff points for expensive and worthless old pensioners...

See Maddow last night. She went point for point on how Wisconsin and Michigan redistricted - it took them a while and now The Repukes own their governments. That same format is being practiced and will take states with big cities and change the electoral college representation to favor the predominantly wealthy white minority (in numbers) suburbs to usurp the 'power of the people' ie in numbers - what used to determine elections - to those of the select few. You can bet it will go down. And for us liberals we owe the world to african american votes in those cities for putting this guy back in office ... question is will he come through? And will the Dems and intellectuals do anything about all of this?

The tide will turn and many of these psychopathic politicians and the fools who vote for them are going to get their comuppance in the upcoming election cycles. Obama's victory was the turning point of the overreaching power of the plutocrats. We just have to hold Obama's feet to the fire on this and every other major issue that comes up. People are catching onto the mendacity of these bought off politicans. Workers at McDonalds in the New York area are now striking for a rise in their paltry $8 an hour salaries, and there will be more.

The gov has made strikes illegal to a great extent...only when people have had it and we see big wildcat strikes that shut the country down like in France, will we see any improvment. There is a reason Obama passed NDAA and it is so the army can be used against the coming strikes that 'threaten our national security'. No more Pinkerton problems.

Politicians of Snyder's ilk would never get into office if a majority of Michiganders didn't vote them in. When I was last in Michigan in 2010, I talked with some people near Detroit and some from Ann Arbor, and asked them why they'd voted for Snyder. Most responded "because he seemed like such a nice guy".There you have it, the gold standard by which we now judge and vote for our political representatives.

Does anyone know if it would be legal to require those who do not pay dues to negotiate their own wages, hours, benefits and pension plans, if any, individually? If they don't want in, why should they benefit from what was won collectively? (Maybe some unions do charge to high of dues relative to specific wages?)

Painter, Union dues will always be too high for freeloaders, no matter what the amount charged relative to the wage. Unscrupulous employers often pay yhe same wages and give the same benefits to non union workers so that non union freeloaders see no reason to pay dues for something the union bargained and won for just their members. Employers knw human nature is to want something for nothing, or more for less. Presto, you get everyone wanting to ride for free and wages and benefits spiraling ever downward. Being an old union man from Michigan, I watched all of this happen from when John Engler, former Governor of Michigan started all of this back in the early eighties. The "something for nothing ... more for less" crowd ate the Repub's crap up with a spoon. Now everyone in Michigan is going to have to suffer what these worthless scabs have voted in. So sorry for those good union people who will have to suffer along with what these worthless freeloaders have created through their personal greed.

What you have just seen is an old fashioned Nazi Putsch performed by the neo-fascists now in control of the State of Michigan. They got their sleeper agents elected into postions two, four six and more years ago, and when the word was given by the appropriately Gemanically named Koch brothers, the putsch began, and it's not over yet. Women's rights, civil rights property ownership laws, etc. mean nothing to these warped, greedy old men. They will stop at nothing, as it's all just a game to them. they are determined to die with the most toys, not realizing that in the end they will just be dead, with their toys left behind for the other human vultures to fight over.

I'm not sure we're listening to Lakoff's primary concern. Sure he's really bothered by the effect of this legislation. It seem to me though, that his primary concern, and one we're just not picking up on, is the way that language is being used to manipulate 'the people's' consciousness to accept law which runs contrary to their best interests(this is a recurring theme in Lakoff's posts). His is an invitation to repudiate the R2W title (thanks Midwest Tom)and alternatively label it the Corporate Servitude Bill. This is a Corporate Servitude Bill, and will become a Corporate Servitude Law. Lakoff is inviting us to label it for what it is. Only then will we fully understand what is being sold here.

For those of you around the country who don't know the history of what just happened in Michigan, here it is in a nutshell, with due credit to Martin Niemoller who created the original version:

First they came for the General Assistance recipients and the residents of Northville and Traverse City State (Mental) Hospitals and I didn't speak out because I wasn't one of "thme."

Then they came for the poor black residents of Flint, Benton Harbor and Ann Arbor and I didn't speak out because I wasn't Black or poor.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and no one was left to speak for me.

This is what is unfolding in Michigan. I watched and tried to fight it all, as many of my friends and neighbors voted time and time against the "others" (and, inadvertantly, their own self interests) when they were told by Republican demogogues that "those others" were responsible for the poor Michigan economy.

They failed/refused (and continue)to recognize that nearly all of it was the result of rising oil prices, poor management decisions at the highest levels of the auto idustry and a rapid expansion of the global economy.

These otherwise good people never understood the old adage, "there, but for the grace of God go I."

Now the wolves are truly in the position to descend on the lambs, and descend they will.

And Postal Employees and the Public are under attack in HR2309 proposed by Issa who claims he is striving to save the USPS but is setting the USPS for privatization. In 2006 the PAEA signed by Bush, mandated that the USPS fund 75 years of retiree health benefits in 10 at 5.5 Billion for 10 years. Rescinding this law would solve the USPS $ problems. Overpayments of 50+Billion the USPS made to the CSRS and those made to FERS should be returned.

HR2309 would cut the workforce by at least 100,000 and make Postal Workers’ wages and benefits depend on a separate board when a contract isn’t agreed upon. Issa’s cure would cause the death of the USPS as a public service and have it revived as a business with lower paid workers, higher rates and less service. .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09ybkkiH2Hohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am4wez1ShPYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsPIY9bFFZYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-chx0j3_8IUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRcBoDSfisghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDJNamOGSe

This is how the Post Office could end up privatized if HR2309 were passed.Management is replaced if they cannot restructure Postal Service finances.When the USPS fails to pay bills 30+ days, a receivership-style authority takes over for USPS management with an explicit mandate to cut costs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Up3CW85q-c

Issa is a really nasty SOB, who is determined to bring down Obama's administration. He causes problems where ever he cam He is also the one who worked hard at blowing the sad Benghazi attack totally out of proportion.

He is enormously ambitious. Very wealthy too. He was in trouble, when he was younger, I believe he was arrested for car theft, he obviously learned something from that, for he made his money on car alarms!!

Where is the Supreme Court on that one? We know where The "FIVE WHORES" who put Bush into office over Gore stand. To me they will always be THE FIVE WHORES. I can't think of anything more appropriate to call them.

The Supreme Court, They would be laughable if they weren't so pathetic and so dangerous. They think we, the public, respect their awesome wisdom. We only accept their decisions because we fear them. Someday the public will stop fearing them because the pain of what they have inflicted on us will be feared greater than death. When that happens, they will be met by mobs and dragged kicking and screaming from their limousines and ...

Again, where is the concept of "one person one vote" in these gerrymandered districts and where is our supposedly "Supreme" Court?

Lakoff's warning about using the conservative's buzzwords applies also to another issue that's on the Michigan agenda...freedom of reproductive choice.Pro-choice people must stop using the phrase "birth control"...abortion is birth control. The term we should always use, unless speaking of abortion, is "contraception", which is also the correct term.

byard pidgeon, It's obvious that you get Lakoff's message, but usng the term "contraception" over "birth control" is a cop out to the neo-fascist language masters. What we should be arguing is for "freedom of reproduction" or "freedom of reproductive rights" or something using that great, beloved American word "freedom" A word that appeals to Americans on a visceral, instinctive level.

The reproductive rights issue was an issue in Hitler's Germany when the Fuhrer and his fellow Nazis did all that they could to encourage the birth of more good Aryan babies (and thereby more future Nazi Stormtroopers), while discouraging the births of non-Aryan babies by any method available up to, and including, forced sterilization of "mental defectives" gypsies and other undesirables, including the Jews.

This ssue is less about simply controlling women's reproductive rights as a power issue than it is about ensuring the (re)growth of their Republican Party in eighteen years and beyond. They really do think and plan much farther down the road than most of us liberals!

Remember, they want to control the dialogue through the language used, because it ultimately gives them control of the discussion,. They win if they can define their opposition's position into laughability and then obsolesence, just as they did with the good, old word "liberal."

"Remember, they want to control the dialogue through the language used, because it ultimately gives them control of the discussion,. They win if they can define their opposition's position"...exactly my point about the difference between "birth control" and "contraception". "Birth control" is a very loaded phrase, used exclusively by anti-choice right wingers...and, unfortunately, by too many pro-choice people who don't realize the symbolic value of their words.

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.